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To begin his talk at the Startup Village at South By Southwest, Steve Blank--eight-time entrepreneur and The Four Steps to the Epiphany author--played a clip from Bravo’s reality show “Start-Ups: Silicon Valley.” Ben and Hermione Way, two aspiring entrepreneurs who haven’t built a product or previously founded any companies, pitch investor Dave McClure. When McClure gently grabs the computer and runs through their pitch deck on his own, Way complains to the camera, “I found it slightly disrespectful, him just going through the whole thing and making his own judgments.”

Steve Blank

Following the clip, Blank displayed Way’s quote on the screen, then read it aloud so the audience could fully appreciate its absurdity. Incredulously, he asked, “What the f--- is going on?”

There was once a time when the goings on of Silicon Valley, and the technology industry in general, didn’t interest anyone aside from a relative handful of engineers and scientists. For decades the valley quietly plodded along, creating chips and rockets unbothered by the gawking masses—or even MBAs. Those quiet years are now gone.

Tech wunderkinds routinely grace the covers of magazines (ours included). Dozens of websites have popped up, devoted exclusively to covering the gossip, personalities and developments of technology companies. An entire ecosystem of lawyers, PR reps, conference planners, investors, gurus and talking heads has formed, all clamoring for a piece of the industry’s cash. For those on the outside, it’s easy to get the idea that only two things matter: funding and press coverage.

Blank points out that this evolution closely parallels the formation of the movie industry in the early 20th century. What started out as a technological novelty with nameless actors, directors and engineers working in obscurity, quickly grew into an industry dominated by buzz and cults of personality as movie-going became commonplace for tens of millions of Americans. The attributes of the “star ecosystem” that followed are familiar to any recent observer of the technology industry: gossip press, gatekeepers, herd effects, fad investing, poseurs. Hidden somewhere among them—hard workers.

“Our time as an industry of just hard workers is over,” Blank declared. “It’s no longer populated by just people who actually do s—t. It’s now full of those who make money off people who actually do s—t.”

The result of all this: “People now believe you can show up in Silicon Valley with a slide deck and get a million dollars. They say, ‘I haven’t done any work yet, but fund me.’"

Even talented, hardworking CEOs and founders can get caught up in the hype. Why? Blank lists seven reasons:

Ego

Ego

Ego

Vanity metrics

Attract talent

Get funding

Drive customer demand

If CEOs get caught up in doing press for reasons other than the last three, he says, their companies are doomed. The only mantra that startups need: “Build a great product for people who will grab it out of your hand.”

"Just showing up and talking is not building a company. Those who fall in love with seeing their name in print without understanding one of those three, I can tell you with 90% certainty that their companies will fail."

Citing Elon Musk as an example of a CEO who understands the balance between press and real work, Blank showed a video of a SpaceX rocket launch. He reminded the audience, “Remember, he’s building this and Tesla at the same time! So take a good look at your mobile app and remember that you could do this too.”